


Suffering (Too Terrible to Name)

by ambivalentangst



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Chronic Pain, Gen, Hurt/Almost Comfort, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Entirely Avengers: Infinity War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Infinity War (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Written Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:27:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18822007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentangst/pseuds/ambivalentangst
Summary: Tony thinks of water. The science of it is basic, the constant breaking and reformation of bonds that make it hard to heat up as compared to a lot of other things the universe has to offer. Water is one of those funny things people always take for granted, anyway, something everybody needs and uses every single day and never gives a second thought.Tony thinks of water, and he thinks of silence. He used to take that for granted too, but that was before people started disappearing and Peter started to scream.(If there was any such thing as mercy, he’d already be gone.)





	Suffering (Too Terrible to Name)

**Author's Note:**

> as Michael Jackson would say in these trying times: he he

Tony thinks of water. The science of it is basic, the constant breaking and reformation of bonds that make it hard to heat up as compared to a lot of other things the universe has to offer. Water is one of those funny things people always take for granted, anyway, something everybody needs and uses every single day and never gives a second thought.

Tony thinks of water, and he thinks of silence. He used to take that for granted too, but that was before people started disappearing and Peter started to scream. He didn’t think it was something that needed appreciating, not when silence had been biting at his heels ever since all of his family left with the presentation of a set of papers and never looked back.  
  
If he could touch him, it might be easier.  
  
The calculations have run through Tony’s head, the logic behind why the way the stones are going about killing him isn’t working. Peter’s whole thing is that his cells, after whatever happened to them, knit back together and regenerate. A shot to the head would do it, something strangling him, but the stones are trying to disassemble him bit by bit, and Peter’s built to take it.  
  
Tony’s tried to comfort him, cup his face and hold him like he so desperately wanted in what should’ve been his last moments.  
  
(If there was any such thing as mercy, he’d already be gone.)  
  
His touch made him crumble, had him flaking away into ash like everyone else. Tony reaching to help saw the kid’s back arching away from the touch, spine bent like no human’s should be able, and he still screamed. Tony wasn’t sure he was capable of stopping.  
  
The woman—Nebula—had to drag the kid onto the ship, struggling to keep a grip on Peter’s phasing limbs, stuck between reality and memory with the rest of him. Tony couldn’t stand making his suffering any worse.  
  
Even in the cockpit, separated only briefly from him to give directions, Peter’s voice echoes loud and clear.  
  
He punches in the coordinates, every movement stiff. “How long until arrival?” he asks, raising his voice to be heard over Peter. The screen is full of units of measurement he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care about—not right now. He assumes whatever is translating what Nebula’s saying will work well enough.  
  
She shrugs, louder as well when she speaks. “The estimate might be off, but this says a few days. We’re galaxies away from your home—it’s to be expected.”  
  
Tony is way past disguising how poorly that sits with him. He nods, but his lips are thin, face grim. “Got it.” There’s a selfish, twisted part of Tony—even darker than all the rest—that desperately wants to leave Peter by himself. He doesn’t want to look him in the eye, watch his skin flake away and reform in the same instant, and he can’t keep quiet. “Need anything else?” He wants her—needs her to say yes.  
  
_Don’t make me face my failure_ , he wants to beg. _Don’t make me see him suffer because I couldn’t win._  
  
(He’s known for years, been preparing all that time, and he still lost.)  
  
It’s pathetic, shallow. Even though Tony can’t see Nebula passing judgement, he knows how ugly his cowardice is. “Go see him,” she instructs, voice low.  
  
The drag of Tony’s feet across the floor is nearly as torturous as the shrieking in the air, in his ears, in his head. There’s no escaping that it is Tony’s fault Peter is in such agony. He opens the door, and the sight of him is as horrifying as it was on Titan.

Peter’s lying on a cot, shaking, nearly vibrating as his teeth rattle in his head and, like Tony said, screams. Tony had stared at him in horror for a while—too long—before it sank in. The kid’s supposed to be dead. The convulsing creature covered in the suit he made should be long gone with the other half of the universe, but his healing factor won’t let him.

(Would Peter ever have begged to stay if he knew his alternative?)  
  
The rust of the ground is gone, the caress of a hot breeze made way for the recycled air of the ship.  
  
Tony doesn’t know what to do.

He can’t hold him, isn’t even sure he can hear. If Tony can barely make his mind work above the noise, how can Peter process?  
  
(It’s a cruel sort of miracle, the way his eyes follow him.)  
  
Tony stands near him, trying to keep all the terror he feels from showing. What can he possibly say to make it better? Apologies are useless—what is there to tell him other than _I wish it was anyone else._  
  
( _I wish it was me._ )  
  
Peter’s tells are subtle, his head continuing to slam against metal as his limbs scrabble for purchase, denting whatever they touch. There is little to no room for pause, let alone quiet, but Tony’s presence makes his breaths the tiniest bit longer, gives him something familiar to look at.  
  
Tony’s hands ball into fists, a white shine allotted to each of his knuckles. He will never forget the way Peter looks now, the grotesque contortion of every single piece of him in his agony.

The mere thought of saying something seems strangely barbaric—how _dare_ Tony think of speaking over him? It would be like hushing him, which should be impossible because Tony couldn’t stop him if he tried.

(He did _try,_ and it wasn’t enough. It never is.)

Peter deserves this, at least—an outlet for his howling, ceaseless pain.

Tony, on the other hand, can’t speak, can’t touch, can hardly stand to see. So he finds a place to sit, and he stays.

It’s almost worse when, finally, the screaming stops. 

(To call it silence would be wrong.)

Peter’s lips—dry and carrying the dirt of Titan in their creases—are parted, and every breath he takes is his last, his death rattles a paradox in their numbers alone. There is no more screaming, true, but the dull thumps his body makes as it seizes and crashes into everything in its path are hardly better.

If Tony thought anything he had could hold him, he’d have him strapped down. As it is, he knows that Peter is capable of lifting entire _buildings_. He could likely toss the ship as a whole, and so there is nothing— _always nothing_ —he can do but let his fists rain down their blows, allow the ground, the walls to bear their weight via the dents he leaves in their wake.

Nebula says nothing of the damage. Maybe she knows that it’s best to leave Tony alone, that his shaking hands and red eyes will snap given the slightest opportunity.

Deep down, Tony tastes nothing but pity in her indifference.

Space is infinite, dark and unfeeling, and every second spent watching it tug at all the loose threads in Peter’s seams is shrapnel burrowing into Tony’s heart all over again.

(He sleeps at his side, haunted by Peter’s last smile before _this_ —before his nightmares could never hope to outdo his reality.)

Nebula comes in sometimes, sits close—and closer still through the days they spend getting back—and tells Tony what needs to be done around the ship. “I’ll watch your boy,” she says. Tony, the first time, isn’t sure why he trusts her. Later, he’ll hypothesize that it has something to do with being with him together, bearing the weight of their other passenger and forcing food and water past his lips in an arduous, excruciating process. Nebula, Tony, and Peter—the only people left from Titan.

(To call themselves survivors would only be accurate in the barest sense of the word.)

They stagger back onto Earth, and it feels like a sigh. Their ship touches the ground and then comes the next breath in. The air is suddenly full of power—glass—that stabs their chests, and Tony feels nothing but guilt as Steve Rogers comes out of the compound and embraces him.

“You’re alive,” Steve breathes.

Tony wants to tell him that _no_ , to _be_ is not to _live_ , but instead, he holds him back and nods. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

Tony manages to break the cot Peter’s on off of the wall, and together, he and Nebula bring him inside. The two of them are experts at working through Peter’s screams—barely there these days, and when they are, worse than ever—but as they take him through the compound, they’re reminded that nobody else is.

Bruce, Clint, Natasha, Thor, even the new woman—they’re all outside, trying to get a glimpse of Tony and ask what happened. Rhodey’s at his side almost instantly, trying to support him as he keeps walking.

“Can you bring his head up a little?” Tony asks Nebula, who’s admittedly shouldering the majority of the weight. What’s left of the suit can only help so much. 

Steve’s trying to bust in, help, and Tony all but snarls in his effort to put himself between Peter and him. “Don’t touch him. We’ve got it.” It’s not even a matter of their history, not really. Sure, there are things between them that need mending, but Tony doesn’t want anybody touching Peter. He can’t trust them with him, not when they don’t know everything the two of them have seen of him. Nebula looks more tense than usual too. As for Peter—well, he does as always when he’s moved.

His eyes screw together and he begins to thrash, the noise starting up again. Tony breathes in deep, his fingers clench on the cot, and they keep walking despite the look of horror that comes over everyone’s faces.

Bruce calls out, shuffling forward in the walk-run that he always does, trying to catch up to their stumbling procession. “Wait, Tony—we need to—” He’s gasping for breath, winded. “—We need to get him to medical—that’s—”

Tony cuts him off, monotone. “It won’t do anything. It’s not a medical thing.”

Bruce is well-intentioned, but Tony has already come to grips with the fact that this is so much bigger than any technology, that there’s nothing they can do. It was always the _bigger_ that Tony feared, raged against and lost all the same.

They haven’t stopped walking.

“Tony—”

“Let it go,” he growls, adjusting his grip and hefting Peter up. “We’ve got it.”

The cot’s already warped and covered in Peter’s fingerprints, and he lets out a longer wail, tearing off a chunk and clenching it like it’s a stress ball before his hand dissolves and it falls. Bruce jumps back. “That’s—”

“I told you it’s not a medical thing,” Tony mumbles, finally able to get inside. FRIDAY welcomes him back along with _Mr. Parker._

“Find Strange’s buddy, assuming he’s alive,” he manages. “I need him.” He’s still leading Nebula when he feels a hand on his shoulder and he stumbles. The cot tilts, as does Peter, and Tony watches his body descend in slow motion, falling to the ground and exploding into a million flakes of ash, bit by bit, limb by limb.

There’s a gasp, and for a second, Tony thinks it’s over. He couldn’t bring himself to kill him, but if it was an accident, horrible and merciful all in the same breath, Tony might be okay. Peter would be better off, no longer in pain.

Then, right where he fell, Tony sees him come back together with a cough and burst of blood from his lips. This time, he doesn’t scream.

(Peter may crumble at his edges, but at his core, he’s too strong to be undone.)

FRIDAY’s voice is almost hushed, echoing from the ceiling.

“Boss, Mr. Parker appears to be comatose.”

Tony lets himself stare and process for a long second, taking a deep breath in.

His mind churns, tearing through explanations until it becomes clear to him that basically all of Peter’s energy has been expended not letting him die. It’s a neat little cause and effect thing, Tony thinks, nearly a formula.

_Peter fighting the stones x Tony being an idiot = Peter in a coma_

His hands shake, a combination of exhaustion, malnutrition, and general stress coming to fruition. Nebula’s watching him, everyone’s watching him, and Tony wishes more than anything that he could be one of the people on the outskirts. The people on the outskirts don’t feel pain like what envelops Tony at the thought of what Peter’s struggling through.

He lets the breath back out.

“Let’s get him back on the cot,” he manages in the end.

(To call it silence is the only thing that fits.)

* * *

Tony only lets May see him once Wong is through. He’s been called cruel more times than he can count, but he can’t let May see the full extent of the pain Peter’s in. If he can barely handle Peter at his worst, he wants May to see the best he can offer.

She’s still in her scrubs when Tony meets her at the door, and he feels all the more selfish for it. He’s _heard_ about the victims of the snap that made it past the dusting—the car accidents, the children left unattended, the maintenance workers that left plants to their own devices—he just hasn’t been able to handle helping.

May doesn’t look _bad_ because May never looks bad, but Tony has a hard time believing anyone would dare to court what’s so obviously grief scrawled all over her face.

Tony hates himself a little more for not telling her sooner and for not being more clear when he did.

It’s just—

He doesn’t want to tell her he’s alive. That would imply that there’s something other than pain in his normally sparkling eyes. Tony doesn’t want to lie to her.

“Hey,” he greets her limply, unable to muster his usual charm.

She sniffs. “Where’s my kid?”

That’s fairer than Tony would care to admit.

“I don’t want to lead you on,” Tony starts. “He’s here, but—”

She cuts him off. “Look, I know you like to talk, but I need to see him.  We can do the opening spiel another day.

Tony winces. “Alright,” he murmurs, uncharacteristically quiet. “I can do that. Just take it slow, okay?”

May looks spiteful despite her nod, and Tony supposes that’s fair too. She watched her kid get shipped off to space and was left to wonder about his fate during the days it took for Tony to contact her. He tries to put himself in her shoes. If he lost his kid—

(He thinks of what it would be like to have someone else bring Peter back to him, how his heart would leap for the sheer luck of seeing him still alive.)

Yeah, May has the right idea, being a mess of nerves.

He leads her down the hall, his normal chatter silenced. He shoves his hands in his pockets, thinking of the long hours in space with nothing but blackness and Peter’s screams as a distraction. He thinks of Nebula, who says she doesn’t care but maintains vigil outside Peter’s room. He thinks of Thanos and immediately decides that’s a mistake because he gets angry—too angry, too fast—and that’s not what May needs right now.

Where he hesitates for just a second outside the door, May barges in. Tony can barely reach out to warn her when he hears her breath catch. He watches her arm raise as she presses a hand over her mouth. He sees Peter, suspended in a bubble of orange above the ground where nothing can touch his fragile skin.

The opening of his eyes is the only progress they’ve had since the fall, and he’s staring up at the ceiling, blank, unmoving. Tony hears May choke on a sob.

“Like I said,” he mumbles. “I didn’t want to lead you on.” He comes forward, in line with May but careful to avert his eyes so she can still have her privacy.

She stumbles over her words. “How—why—” Another sob. “What happened?” she whispers, voice hoarse.

Tony barely has an answer for her. “Whatever Thanos did, it’s trying to work on Peter, and he’s fighting it off.”

May takes a second to process, and Tony watches her come up to the bubble, skim her fingers across its surprisingly solid surface. “So he should be dead?” she whispers.

Tony can barely stomach the nod he gives her. “We’re trying to keep him from touching anything. This is as comfortable as he can get right now.”

May is silent, and she presses her forehead against the orange. Tony can still see her shoulders shaking.

What draws his attention more is the way Peter’s head turns to stare right at her.

(He has to be in agony, but Peter has always tried to put on a brave face for May.)

His hand shakes as it moves and his fingers dissolve where they touch the side of his confines. May looks up, and his lips curl into both the weakest and most radiant smile Tony’s ever seen.

Sound is too much, but Peter’s eyes stay on May as he mouths an _I love you_.

Tony’s heart aches as his gaze lands on him next.

There are no words for Tony—already his hand is falling, his face slack—but his eyes gleam with a thousand things left unsaid.

(A thousand unneeded apologies, a thousand screams for mercy, a thousand promises that he’ll be okay— _just trust him, Mr. Stark_.)

Tony smiles because Peter can’t, ignores the burning at the back of his eyes. “You’re doing great, bud,” he manages, and he means it.

Tony thinks of water, and looking at a kid fight fate to comfort who he can, he thinks that given time, Peter will be strong enough that Tony’s mind won’t compare the two. 


End file.
